A waste of resources, talent and money

I attended the commissioners’ meeting Tuesday night to gain some perspective on the Crawley situation. The only thing that I gained was the realization this was a waste.

You see, when the commissioners came back from executive session, they already had the Crawleys’ resignation letter in hand. Mr. Kessler was holding what looked like a two-page letter in his hand and I could read his lips as he asked one of the commissioners, “Should I read it?” I wanted to yell out from my seat, “read it,” but I didn’t. I knew that they would not read aloud the terms of the Crawleys’ resignation because it would demonstrate how the commissioners just agreed to waste our money and resources.

Even though I do not know the details of the resignation letter, I heard that the Crawleys are getting some kind of financial settlement from the county. This is a waste because now we have to pay someone else to do the Crawleys’ vacated jobs which have already been paid for through the resignation agreement.

The Crawleys had more education, training and experience than 95 percent of the people in that commissioners’ meeting. Yet, we have now wasted that knowledge resource. We will also be wasting more resources trying to re-hire those two key positions. That is assuming that there is someone out there who wants to come to work in that environment.

Is this what we can expect going forward from commissioners? Are there other employees that we intend to “pay to go away” through resignation letters? In my world, if there is an issue with an employee, a manager must “counsel,” “reprimand,” or “terminate” to correct the situation. There are no other options. Employees only resign on their own accord — usually having another job lined up and waiting. However, I am pretty certain that the Crawleys did not have anything else lined up. This leads me to believe that they were forced out and paid-off for other “non-performance”-based issues.

In my opinion, Effingham County cannot afford to waste any more money or resources handling personnel issues in this manner. If there is an investigation/audit in any department, we should disclose the complete findings and then “counsel,” “reprimand,” or “terminate” to correct the employee behavior. Our county owes every employee the opportunity to improve — and most employees do improve when given the chance. Apparently, it’s not the employees that need improving in our county; it’s the people that manage them.

Our leaders need to invest and attend some “human resource” training. That would not be a waste.